Geopolitics

Geopolitics and Geostrategy

The study of actors, their power, and their interests in space, that is in geography.

By extension, the study of how these interests interact and compete in space.

These actors, of course, include states, but also movements, groups, or even ideologies.

Geostratety focuses on the strategic of maintaining or gaining geopolitical advantage.

Strategy refers to advance planning and the ability to project one’s needs into the future and plan for them.

It also has to do with the matching of means (resources) to ends (objectives) in space.

It refers to the agency of an actor, his deliberate capability to deploy means to achieve objectives.

What is the shape of the chessboard?

→ The concept of polarity

• A pole is a center of power

The world can be:

• Unipolar
• Bipolar
• Multipolar

Power, hard and soft

What is power?

→ The ability to make others do something in own interests.

World system

• The great powers: Only five countries have a great power because they have: Veto, nuclear weapons and permanent seat (USA, France, China, UK, Russia)
• The top ten economies but not necessarily great powers (Italy, India, USA, Germany, France., Brazil, Canada…)
• The BRICS: an old story →Recession for Brazil and Russia, corruption… at contrary India always increasing.
• Newly emerging markets → Industrialised countries, infrastructures, regulated markets, medium class (Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand)
• Frontier markets → In between developing countries and emerging markets. Markets with high or double digit growth, that have begun to introduce a capital market, although it is highly illiquid and therefore volatile.

Many are in Africa today but many factors in Africa can question economic progress: Gabon, Ethiopia…)

• The LDCs, often failed states or recovering from conflict → the world’s poorest countries with 3 criteria:

• Low-income criterion: based on a three-year average estimate of the gross national income (GNI) per capita (under $750 for inclusion, above $900 for graduation).
• Human resource weakness criterion: involving a composite Human Assets Index (HAI) based on indicators of nutrition, health, education, and adult literacy.
• Economic vulnerability criterion: based on indicators of the instability of agricultural production; the instability of exports of goods and services; the economic importance of non-traditional activities (share of manufacturing and modern services in GDP); merchandise export concentration; and the handicap of economic smallness.

International order

What’s order?

How do you know the system is “out of order”?

Who’s order is it anyway?

Is a hegemon necessary to the maintenance of order?